Sumerian culture, the first civilization on Earth. Sumerian art, the art of the Sumerians and Akkadians, as it was thousands of years ago

The oldest settlements known to mankind date back to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. e. and are located in different places of Mesopotamia. One of the settlements of the Sumerians was discovered under the hill Tell el-Ubeid, after which the whole period was named. (Similar hills, called "telli" in Arabic by the modern local population, were formed from the accumulation of building remains.)

The Sumerians built dwellings round, and later rectangular in plan, from reed or reed stalks, the tops of which were tied with a bundle. The huts were covered with clay to keep warm. Images of such buildings are found on ceramics and on seals. A number of cult, dedicatory stone vessels are made in the form of huts (Baghdad, Iraqi Museum; London, British Museum; Berlin Museum).

Primitive clay figurines of the same period depict the mother goddess (Baghdad, Iraqi Museum). Clay stucco vessels are decorated with geometrized painting in the form of birds, goats, dogs, palm leaves (Baghdad, Iraqi Museum) and have fine decorations.

Culture of the Sumerians in the second half of the 4th millennium BC. e.

Temple at al-Ubaid

An example of a temple building is a small temple of the goddess of fertility Ninhursag in al-Ubaid, a suburb of the city of Ur (2600 BC). entrance door. The walls of the temple and platform, according to the ancient Sumerian tradition, were dissected by shallow vertical niches and ledges. The retaining walls of the platform were plastered with black bitumen at the bottom and whitewashed at the top, and thus also divided horizontally. This horizontal rhythm was echoed by the ribbons of the frieze on the walls of the sanctuary. The cornice was decorated with fired clay nails with hats in the form of symbols of the goddess of fertility - flowers with red and white petals. In the niches above the cornice there were copper figurines of walking gobies 55 cm high. Even higher along the white wall, as already mentioned, three friezes were laid out at some distance from each other: a high relief with figures of lying gobies made of copper, and above it two flat ones, inlaid on a black slate background with white mother-of-pearl. On one of them there is a whole scene: priests in long skirts, with shaved heads milking cows and churning butter (Baghdad, Iraqi Museum). On the upper frieze, on the same black slate background, there are images of white doves and cows facing the entrance to the temple. Thus, the color scheme of the friezes was common with the color of the temple platform, making up a single, integral color solution.

Two statues of lions (Baghdad, Iraqi Museum) were placed on the sides of the entrance, made of wood covered over a layer of bitumen with chased copper sheets. The eyes and protruding tongues of the lions were made of colored stones, which greatly enlivened the sculpture and created a colorful saturation.

A copper high relief (London, British Museum) was placed above the entrance door, turning in places into a round sculpture depicting the fantastic lion-headed eagle Imdugud, holding two deer in its claws. The well-established heraldic composition of this relief, repeated with slight changes in a number of monuments of the middle of the III millennium BC. e. (silver vase of the ruler of the city of Lagash Entemena - Paris, Louvre; seals, dedicatory reliefs, for example, a palette, Dudu from Lagash - Paris, Louvre), and was, apparently, the emblem of the god Ningirsu.

The columns that supported the canopy over the entrance were also inlaid, some with colored stones, mother-of-pearl and shells, others with metal plates attached to a wooden base with nails with colored caps. The steps of the stairs were made of white limestone, and the sides of the stairs were lined with wood.

New in the architecture of the temple in al-Ubayd was the use of a round sculpture and relief as a decoration for the building, the use of a column as a bearing part. The temple was a small but elegant structure.

Temples similar to the one at al-Ubaid were opened at the settlements of Tell Brak and Khafajah.

Ziggurat

A peculiar type of religious building also developed in Sumer - ziggurat, which for thousands of years played, like the pyramid in Egypt, a very important role in the architecture of the whole of Asia Minor. This is a stepped tower, rectangular in plan, lined with solid raw brick masonry. Sometimes only in front of the ziggurat a small room was arranged. On the upper platform there was a small temple, the so-called "home of God". A ziggurat was usually built at the temple of the main local deity.

Sculpture

Sculpture in Sumer did not develop as intensively as architecture. The buildings of the funeral cult, associated with the need to convey a portrait likeness, as in Egypt, did not exist here. Small cult dedicatory statues, not intended for a specific place in the temple or tomb, depicted a person in a prayer pose.

The sculptural figures of the southern Mesopotamia are distinguished by barely outlined details and conditional proportions (the head often sits directly on the shoulders without a neck, the entire block of stone is very little dissected). Vivid examples are two small statues: the figure of the head of the granaries of the city of Uruk named Kurlil found in al-Ubaid (height - 39 cm; Paris, Louvre) and the figure of an unknown woman originating from Lagash (height - 26.5 cm; Paris, Louvre) . There is no individual portrait resemblance in the faces of these statues. These are typical images of the Sumerians with sharply emphasized ethnic features.

In the centers of the northern Mesopotamia, plastic art developed in general along the same path, but it also had its own specific features. Very peculiar, for example, are the statuettes from Eshnunna, depicting adorants (prayers), a god and a goddess (Paris, Louvre; Berlin Museum). They are characterized by more elongated proportions, short clothes that leave legs and often one shoulder open, and huge inlaid eyes.

For all the conventions of performance, the dedicatory figurines of ancient Sumer are distinguished by great and peculiar expressiveness. Just as in reliefs, certain rules for the transmission of figures, postures and gestures have already been established here, which pass from century to century.

Relief

A number of votive palettes and stelae have been found at Ur and Lagash. The most important of them, the middle of the III millennium BC. e., are the palette of the ruler of Lagash Ur-Nanshe (Paris, Louvre) and the so-called " Stele of kites" of the ruler of Lagash Eannatum (Paris, Louvre).

The Ur-Nanshe palette is very primitive in its art form. Ur-Nanshe himself is depicted twice, in two registers: on the upper one he goes to the solemn laying of the temple at the head of the procession of his children, and on the lower one he is feasting among those close to him. The high social position of Ur-Nanshe and his main role in the composition are emphasized by his large stature compared to others.

"Stela of Kites".

In narrative form, the “Stela of kites” was also solved, which was created in honor of the victory of the ruler of the city of Lagash, Eannatum (XXV century BC) over the neighboring city of Umma and its ally, the city of Kish. The height of the stele is only 75 cm, but it makes a monumental impression due to the peculiarities of the relief that covers its sides. On the front side is a huge figure of the god Ningirsu, the supreme god of the city of Lagash, who holds a net with small figures of defeated enemies and a club. On the other side, in four registers, there are several scenes that successively tell about the campaigns of Eannatum. The plots of the reliefs of ancient Sumer, as a rule, are either religious or religious or military.

Artistic craft of Sumer

In the field of artistic crafts during this period of the development of the culture of ancient Sumer, significant achievements are observed that develop the traditions of the time of Uruk - Jemdet-Nasr. Sumerian craftsmen already knew how to process not only copper, but also gold and silver, alloyed various metals, minted metal products, inlaid them with colored stones, knew how to make products with filigree and granulation. Remarkable works, giving an idea of ​​the high level of development of the artistic craft of that time, were excavated in the city of Ur of the "Royal Tombs" - the burial places of the rulers of the city of the XXVII-XXVI centuries BC. e. (I dynasty of the city of Ur).

The tombs are large rectangular pits. Along with the buried nobles, there are many dead members of their retinue or slaves, slaves and warriors in the tombs. A large number of various items were placed in the graves: helmets, axes, daggers, spears made of gold, silver and copper, decorated with chasing, engraving, graining.

Among the grave goods there is the so-called "standard" (London, British Museum) - two boards mounted on a pole. It is believed that it was worn on a campaign in front of the troops, and perhaps above the head of the leader. On this wooden base, the scenes of the battle and the feast of the winners are laid out with the technique of inlay on a layer of asphalt (shells - figures and lapis lazuli - background). Here is the same already established line-by-line, narrative in the arrangement of figures, a certain Sumerian type of faces and many details documenting the life of the Sumerians of that time (clothes, weapons, wagons).

Remarkable pieces of jewelry found in the "Royal Tombs" are a golden dagger with a lapis lazuli handle, in a golden sheath covered with grain and filigree (Baghdad, Iraqi Museum), a golden helmet forged in the form of a magnificent hairstyle (London, British Museum), a figurine of a donkey, made of an alloy of gold and silver, and a figurine of a goat nibbling flowers (made of gold, lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl).

A colorful and highly artistic solution is distinguished by a harp (Philadelphia, University Museum), discovered in the burial place of the noble Sumerian Shub-Ad. The resonator and other parts of the instrument are adorned with gold and inlaid mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli, while the upper part of the resonator is surmounted by the head of a bull in gold and lapis lazuli, with eyes made of white shell, producing an unusually lively impression. The inlay on the front side of the resonator makes up several scenes on the themes of the folk tale of Mesopotamia.

The art of the second heyday of Sumer XXIII-XXI centuries BC. e.

The heyday of Akkadian art was brought to an end by the invasion of the Gutians, the tribes that conquered the Akkadian state and ruled Mesopotamia for about a hundred years. The invasion affected the southern Mesopotamia to a lesser extent, and some of the ancient cities of this region experienced a new flourishing based on a widely developed trade exchange. This applies to the cities of Lagash and Uru.

Lagash time Gudea

As evidenced by cuneiform texts, the ruler (the so-called "ensi") of the city of Lagash, Gudea, carried out extensive construction work, and was also engaged in the restoration of ancient architectural monuments. But very few traces of this activity have survived to this day. But a vivid idea of ​​the level of development and stylistic features of the art of this time is given by quite numerous monuments of sculpture, which often combine the features of Sumerian and Akkadian art.

Sculpture of time Gudea

During the excavations, more than a dozen dedicatory statues of Gudea himself were found (most are in Paris, in the Louvre), standing or sitting, often in a prayerful pose. They are distinguished by a high level of technical performance, reveal knowledge of anatomy. The statues are divided into two types: squat figures, reminiscent of early Sumerian sculpture, and more elongated, correct proportions, clearly executed in the traditions of Akkad. However, all the figures are softly modeled naked, and the heads of all the statues are portraits. Moreover, the desire to convey not only the similarity, but also signs of age is interesting (some statues depict Gudea as young men). It is also important that many sculptures are quite significant in size, up to 1.5 m in height, and are made of solid diorite, brought from afar.

At the end of the XXII century BC. e. the Gutians were expelled. Mesopotamia united this time under the leadership of the city of Ur during the reign of the III dynasty in it, which headed the new Sumerian-Akkadian state. A number of monuments of this time are associated with the name of the ruler of Ur, Ur-Nammu. He created one of the earliest codes of laws of Hammurabi.

Architecture of Ur III Dynasty

During the reign of the III dynasty of Ur, especially under Ur-Nammu, the construction of temples gained wide scope. The best preserved large complex, consisting of a palace, two large temples and the first large ziggurat in the city of Ur, which was built in the XXII-XXI centuries BC. e. The ziggurat consisted of three ledges with an inclined wall profile and had a height of 21 m. Stairs led from one terrace to another. The rectangular base of the lower terrace had an area of ​​​​65 × 43 m. The ledges or terraces of the ziggurat were of different colors: the lower one was painted with black bitumen, the upper one was whitewashed, and the middle one reddened with the natural color of baked brick. Maybe the terraces were also landscaped. There is an assumption that the ziggurats were used by the priests to observe the heavenly bodies. The rigor, clarity and monumentality of forms, as well as the general outline, the ziggurat is close to the pyramids of ancient Egypt.

The rapid development of temple construction was also reflected in one of the significant monuments of that time - a stele depicting a scene of a procession to the ritual laying of the temple of the ruler Ur-Nammu (Berlin Museum). This work combines the characteristic features of Sumerian and Akkadian art: line division comes from monuments such as the Ur-Nanshe palette, and the correct proportions of the figures, the subtlety, softness and realism of the plastic interpretation are the heritage of Akkad.

Literature

• V. I. AVDIEV History of the Ancient East, ed. II. Gospolitizdat, M., 1953.
• C. Gordon. The most ancient East in the light of new excavations. M., 1956.
• M. V. Dobroklonsky. History of the Arts of Foreign Countries, Volume I, Academy of Arts of the USSR. Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I. E. Repin., 1961.
• I. M. Loseva. Art of Ancient Mesopotamia. M., 1946.
• N. D. Flittner. Culture and arts of Mesopotamia. L.-M., 1958.

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Introduction

culture Sumerian temple

Even in the IV millennium BC. e. in the southern part of Mesopotamia on the territory of modern Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a high culture of the Sumerians was formed at that time (the self-name of the Saggig people is blackheads), which was then inherited by the Babylonians and Assyrians. At the turn of III-II millennia BC. e. Sumer is in decline, and over time, the Sumerian language was forgotten by the population; only the Babylonian priests knew it, it was the language of sacred texts. At the beginning of the II millennium BC. e. primacy in Mesopotamia passes to Babylon.

In the south of Mesopotamia, where agriculture was widely carried out, the ancient city-states of Ur, Uruk, Kish, Umma, Lagash, Nippur, Akkad developed. The youngest of these cities was Babylon, built on the banks of the Euphrates. Most of the cities were founded by the Sumerians, so the ancient culture of Mesopotamia is usually called Sumerian. Now they are called "the progenitor of modern civilization" The heyday of city-states is called the golden age of the ancient state of the Sumerians. This is true both in the literal and figurative sense of the word: objects of the most diverse household purposes and weapons were made from gold here. The culture of the Sumerians had a great influence on the subsequent progress not only of Mesopotamia, but of all mankind.

This culture was ahead of the development of other great cultures. Nomads and trade caravans spread the news about her everywhere.

1 . Writing

The cultural contribution of the Sumerians was not limited to the discovery of methods for working metals, the manufacture of wheeled carts and the potter's wheel. They became the inventors of the first form of recording human speech. At the first stage, it was pictography (pictorial writing), that is, a letter consisting of drawings and, less often, symbols denoting one word or concept. The combination of these drawings conveyed certain information in writing. However, Sumerian legends say that even before the emergence of picture writing, there existed an even more ancient way of fixing thoughts - tying knots on a rope and notches on trees. At the subsequent stages, the drawings were stylized (from a complete, fairly detailed and thorough depiction of objects, the Sumerians gradually move to their incomplete, schematic or symbolic depiction), which accelerated the process of writing. This is a step forward, but the possibilities of such writing were still limited. Thanks to simplifications, individual characters could be used multiple times. So, for many complex concepts there were no signs at all, and even in order to designate such a familiar phenomenon as rain, the scribe had to combine the symbol of the sky - a star and the symbol of water - ripples. Such a letter is called ideographic-rebus.

Historians believe that it was the formation of the management system that led to the appearance of writing in temples and royal palaces. This ingenious invention should, apparently, be considered the merit of the Sumerian temple officials, who improved the pictography to simplify the registration of economic events and trade transactions. Records were made on clay tiles or tablets: the soft clay was pressed with the corner of a rectangular stick, and the lines on the tablets had the characteristic appearance of wedge-shaped depressions. In general, the entire inscription was a mass of wedge-shaped lines, and therefore Sumerian writing is usually called cuneiform. The oldest cuneiform tablets, which made up entire archives, contain information about the temple economy: lease agreements, documents on control over the work performed and registration of incoming goods. These are the oldest written records in the world.

Subsequently, the principle of pictorial writing began to be replaced by the principle of conveying the sound side of the word. Hundreds of signs for syllables appeared, and several alphabetic signs corresponding to the main letters. They were used mainly to denote service words and particles. Writing was a great achievement of the Sumero-Akkadian culture. It was borrowed and developed by the Babylonians and spread widely throughout Asia Minor: cuneiform was used in Syria, ancient Persia, and other states. In the middle of the II millennium BC. e. Cuneiform became the international writing system: even the Egyptian pharaohs knew and used it. In the middle of the first millennium BC. e. cuneiform becomes alphabetic.

2 . Language

For a long time, scientists believed that the Sumerian language was not similar to any of the living and dead languages ​​\u200b\u200bknown to mankind, so the question of the origin of this people remained a mystery. To date, the genetic links of the Sumerian language have not yet been established, but most scientists suggest that this language, like the language of the ancient Egyptians and the inhabitants of Akkad, belongs to the Semitic-Hamitic language group.

Around 2000 BC, the Sumerian language was supplanted by Akkadian from the spoken language, but continued to be used as a sacred, liturgical and scientific language until the beginning of AD. e.

3 . cultureandreligion

In ancient Sumer, the origins of religion had purely materialistic, and not "ethical" roots. Early Sumerian deities 4-3 thousand BC acted primarily as givers of life's blessings and abundance. The purpose of the cult of the gods was not "purification and holiness" but was intended to ensure a good harvest, military success, etc. - it was for this that ordinary mortals revered them, built temples for them, made sacrifices. The Sumerians claimed that everything in the world belongs to the gods - the temples were not the place of residence of the gods, who were obliged to take care of people, but the granaries of the gods - barns. Most of the early Sumerian deities were formed by local gods, whose power did not go beyond a very small territory. The second group of gods were the patrons of large cities - they were more powerful than the local gods, but they were revered only in their cities. Finally, the gods who were known and worshiped in all Sumerian cities.

In Sumer, the gods were like people. In their relationship there are matchmaking and wars, anger and revenge, deceit and anger. Quarrels and intrigues were common in the circle of the gods, the gods knew love and hate. Like people, they did business during the day - they decided the fate of the world, and at night they retired to rest.

Sumerian hell - Kur - a gloomy dark underworld, on the way where there were three servants - "door man", "underground river man", "carrier". Reminds the ancient Greek Hades and Sheol of the ancient Jews. There, a man passed through the court, and a gloomy, depressing existence awaited him. A person comes into this world for a short time, and then disappears into the dark mouth of the Kur. In Sumerian culture, for the first time in history, a person made an attempt to morally overcome death, to understand it as a moment of transition to eternity. All the thoughts of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia were directed to the living: they wished the living well-being and health every day, the multiplication of the family and a happy marriage for daughters, a successful career for sons, and that “beer, wine and all good things never run dry” in the house. The posthumous fate of a person interested them less and seemed to them rather sad and uncertain: the food of the dead is dust and clay, they “do not see the light” and “live in darkness”.

In Sumerian mythology, there are also myths about the golden age of mankind and paradise life, which eventually became part of the religious ideas of the peoples of Asia Minor, and later - in biblical stories.

The only thing that can brighten up the existence of a person in a dungeon is the memory of the living on earth. The people of Mesopotamia were brought up in the deep conviction that one should leave a memory of oneself on earth. Memory is preserved for the longest time in erected cultural monuments. It was they, created by the hands, thought and spirit of man, that constituted the spiritual values ​​of this people, this country and really left behind a powerful historical memory. In general, the views of the Sumerians were reflected in many later religions.

Table. The most powerful gods

An (in Akkadian transcription of Anna)	The god of heaven and the father of other gods, who, like people, asked him for help if necessary. Known for his dismissive attitude towards them and evil antics. Patron of the city of Uruk.
	The god of the wind, air and all space from earth to sky, also treated people and lower deities with disdain, but he invented a hoe and presented it to humanity and was revered as the patron of the earth and fertility. His main temple was in the city of Nippur.
Enki (in Akkadian tran. Ea)	The protector of the city of Eredu, was recognized as the god of the ocean and fresh underground waters.

Table. Other important deities

Nanna (akkad. Sin)	Moon god, patron of the city of Ur
Utu (Akkadian Shamash)	Son of Nanna, patron of the cities of Sippar and Larsa. He personified the ruthless power of the withers. solar heat and at the same time solar heat, without which life is impossible.
Inanna (akkad. Ishtar)	Goddess of fertility and carnal love, she bestowed military victories. Goddess of the city of Uruk.
Dumuzi (Akkadian Tammuz)	The husband of Inanna, the son of the god Enki, the god of water and vegetation, who annually died and resurrected.
	Lord of the realm of the dead and god of the plague.
	Patron saint of valiant warriors. The son of Enlil, who had no city of his own.
Ishkur (Akkadian Adad)	God of thunder and storms.

The goddesses of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon usually acted as the wives of powerful gods or as deities personifying death and the underworld.

In the Sumerian religion, the most important gods, in whose honor the ziggurats were built, were represented in human form as the rulers of the sky, sun, earth, water and storm. In each city, the Sumerians worshiped their own god.

Priests acted as an intermediary between people and gods. With the help of divination, spells and magic formulas, they tried to comprehend the will of the celestials and convey it to the common people.

During 3 thousand BC. the attitude towards the gods gradually changed: they began to attribute new qualities.

The strengthening of statehood in Mesopotamia was also reflected in the religious ideas of the inhabitants. The deities, who personified cosmic and natural forces, began to be perceived as great "heavenly bosses" and only then as the natural element and "giver of blessings." In the pantheon of the gods, the god-secretary, the god-bearer of the throne of the lord, the gods-gatekeepers appeared. Important deities have been assigned to various planets and constellations:

Utu is with the Sun, Nergal is with Mars, Inanna is with Venus. Therefore, all the townspeople were interested in the position of the luminaries in the sky, their relative position and especially the place of “their” star: this promised inevitable changes in the life of the city-state and its population, whether it be prosperity or misfortune. Thus, the cult of heavenly bodies gradually formed, astronomical thought and astrology began to develop. Astrology was born among the first civilization of mankind - the Sumerian civilization. It was about 6 thousand years ago. At first, the Sumerians deified the 7 planets closest to the Earth. Their influence on the Earth was considered as the will of the Deity living on this planet. The Sumerians first noticed that changes in the position of celestial bodies in the sky cause changes in earthly life. Observing the constantly changing dynamics of the starry sky, the Sumerian priests constantly studied and investigated the influence of the movement of celestial bodies on earthly life. That is, they correlated earthly life with the movement of heavenly bodies. There in heaven one could feel order, harmony, consistency, legality. They made the following logical conclusion: if earthly life is consistent with the will of the Gods living on the planets, then a similar order and harmony will arise on Earth. Predictions of the future were built on the basis of studying the position of stars and constellations in the sky, the flights of birds, and the entrails of animals sacrificed to the gods. People believed in the predestination of human destiny, in the subordination of man to higher powers; believed that supernatural forces are always invisibly present in the real world and manifest themselves in a mysterious way.

4 . Architectureandconstruction

The Sumerians knew how to build high-rise buildings and wonderful temples.

Sumer was a country of city-states. The largest of them had their own ruler, who was also the high priest. The cities themselves were built up without any plan and were surrounded by an outer wall that reached considerable thickness. Residential houses of the townspeople were rectangular, two-story with an obligatory courtyard, sometimes with hanging gardens. Many houses had sewerage.

The center of the city was a temple complex. It included the temple of the main god - the patron of the city, the palace of the king and the temple estate.

The palaces of the rulers of Sumer combined a secular building and a fortress. The palace was surrounded by a wall. To supply water to the palaces, aqueducts were built - water was supplied through pipes hermetically insulated with bitumen and stone. The facades of the majestic palaces were decorated with bright reliefs depicting, as a rule, hunting scenes, historical battles with the enemy, as well as animals most revered for their strength and power.

Early temples were small rectangular buildings on a low platform. As cities grew rich and prospered, temples became more imposing and majestic. New temples were usually erected on the site of the old ones. Therefore, the platforms of the temples increased in volume over time; a certain type of structure arose - a ziggurat (see Fig.) - a three- and seven-step pyramid with a small temple at the top. All steps were painted in different colors - black, white, red, blue. The erection of the temple on the platform protected it from floods and flooding of rivers. A wide staircase led to the upper tower, sometimes several stairs from different sides. The tower could be crowned with a golden dome, and its walls were laid out with glazed bricks.

The lower powerful walls were alternating ledges and ledges, which created a play of light and shadow and visually increased the volume of the building. In the sanctuary - the main room of the temple complex - there was a statue of a deity - the heavenly patron of the city. Only priests could enter here, and access to the people was strictly prohibited. Small windows were located under the ceiling, and mother-of-pearl friezes and a mosaic of red, black and white clay nails driven into brick walls served as the main decoration of the interior. Trees and shrubs were planted on stepped terraces.

The most famous ziggurat in history is the temple of the god Marduk in Babylon - the famous Tower of Babel, the construction of which is mentioned in the Bible.

Wealthy citizens lived in two-story houses with a very complex interior. The bedrooms were located on the second floor, downstairs there were lounges and a kitchen. All windows and doors opened onto the inner courtyard, and only blank walls went out onto the street.

In the architecture of Mesopotamia, columns have been found since ancient times, which, however, did not play a big role, as well as vaults. Quite early, the technique of dismembering walls by ledges and niches, as well as ornamenting walls with friezes made in mosaic technique, appears.

The Sumerians first encountered the arch. This design was invented in Mesopotamia. There was no forest here, and the builders thought of arranging an arched or vaulted ceiling instead of a beam ceiling. Arches and vaults were also used in Egypt (this is not surprising, since Egypt and Mesopotamia had contacts), but in Mesopotamia they originated earlier, were used more often and from there spread throughout the world.

The Sumerians established the length of the solar year, which allowed them to accurately orient their buildings to the four cardinal points.

Mesopotamia was poor in stone, and raw brick, dried in the sun, served as the main building material there. Time has not been kind to brick buildings. In addition, cities were often subjected to enemy invasions, during which the dwellings of ordinary people, palaces and temples were destroyed to the ground.

5 . Hauk

The Sumerians created astrology, substantiated the influence of stars on the fate of people and their health. Medicine was mostly homeopathic. Numerous clay tablets with recipes and magic formulas against the demons of disease have been found.

Priests and magicians used knowledge about the movement of the stars, the Moon, the Sun, about the behavior of animals for divination, foreseeing events in the state. The Sumerians were able to predict solar and lunar eclipses, created a solar-lunar calendar.

They discovered the zodiac belt - 12 constellations that form a large circle along which the Sun makes its way during the year. The learned priests compiled calendars, calculated the timing of lunar eclipses. Sumer was the beginning of one of the oldest sciences - astronomy.

In mathematics, the Sumerians knew how to count in tens. But the numbers 12 (a dozen) and 60 (five dozen) were especially revered. We still use the legacy of the Sumerians when we divide an hour into 60 minutes, a minute into 60 seconds, a year into 12 months, and a circle into 360 degrees.

The earliest mathematical texts that have come down to us, written by the Sumerians in the 22nd century BC, show high computational art. They contain multiplication tables in which the well-developed sexagesimal system is combined with the earlier decimal system. A penchant for mysticism was found in the fact that numbers were divided into lucky and unlucky - even the invented sixty-digit system of numbers was a relic of magical ideas: the number six was considered lucky. The Sumerians created a positional notation system in which a number would take on a different meaning depending on the place it occupies in a multi-digit number.

The first schools were created in the cities of Ancient Sumer. Rich Sumerians sent their sons there. Classes continued throughout the day. Learning to write in cuneiform, to count, to tell stories about gods and heroes was not easy. Boys were subjected to corporal punishment for not doing their homework. Anyone who successfully completed school could get a job as a scribe, official, or become a priest. This made it possible to live without knowing poverty.

A person was considered educated: fully fluent in writing, able to sing, owning musical instruments, able to make reasonable and legal decisions.

6. Literature

Their cultural achievements are great and indisputable: the Sumerians created the first poem in human history - "Golden Age", wrote the first elegies, compiled the world's first library catalog. The Sumerians are the authors of the world's first and oldest medical books - collections of recipes. They were the first to develop and record the farmer's calendar and left the first information about protective plantings.

A large number of monuments of Sumerian literature have come down to us, mainly in copies copied after the fall of the III dynasty of Ur and stored in the temple library in the city of Nippur. Unfortunately, partly due to the difficulty of the Sumerian literary language, partly due to the poor condition of the texts (some tablets were found broken into dozens of pieces, now stored in museums in various countries), these works have only recently been read.

Most of them are religious hymns to the gods, prayers, myths, legends about the origin of the world, human civilization and agriculture. In addition, lists of royal dynasties have long been kept in temples. The most ancient are the lists written in the Sumerian language by the priests of the city of Ur. Of particular interest are several small poems containing legends about the origin of agriculture and civilization, the creation of which is attributed to the gods. These poems also raise the question of the comparative value for humans of agriculture and pastoralism, which probably reflects the relatively recent transition of the Sumerian tribes to an agricultural way of life.

The myth of the goddess Inanna, imprisoned in the underworld kingdom of death and freed from there, is distinguished by extremely archaic features; together with its return to earth, the life that was frozen returns. This myth reflected the change of the growing season and the "dead" period in the life of nature.

There were also hymns addressed to various deities, historical poems (for example, a poem about the victory of the Uruk king over the Guteis). The largest work of Sumerian religious literature is a poem written in deliberately intricate language about the construction of the temple of the god Ningirsu by the ruler of Lagash, Gudea. This poem was written on two clay cylinders, each about a meter high. A number of poems of a moral and instructive nature have been preserved.

Few literary monuments of folk art have come down to us. Such folk works as fairy tales have perished for us. Only a few fables and proverbs survive.

The most important monument of Sumerian literature is the cycle of epic tales about the hero Gilgamesh, the legendary king of the city of Uruk, who, as follows from the dynastic lists, ruled in the 28th century BC. In these tales, the hero Gilgamesh is presented as the son of a mere mortal and the goddess Ninsun. Gilgamesh's wanderings around the world in search of the secret of immortality and his friendship with the wild man Enkidu are described in detail. The most complete text of the great epic poem about Gilgamesh has been preserved written down in the Akkadian language. But the records of primary individual epics about Gilgamesh that have come down to us irrefutably testify to the Sumerian origin of the epic.

The cycle of tales about Gilgamesh had a great influence on the surrounding peoples. It was adopted by the Akkadian Semites, and from them it spread to Northern Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. There were also cycles of epic songs dedicated to various other heroes.

An important place in the literature and worldview of the Sumerians was occupied by the legends of the flood, by which the gods allegedly destroyed all life, and only the pious hero Ziusudra was saved in the ship built on the advice of the god Enki. The legends about the flood, which served as the basis for the corresponding biblical legend, took shape under the undoubted influence of memories of catastrophic floods, which in the 4th millennium BC. e. many Sumerian settlements were destroyed more than once.

7 . Art

A special place in the Sumerian cultural heritage belongs to glyptics - carving on precious or semi-precious stone. Numerous Sumerian cylinder-shaped carved seals have survived. The seal was rolled over a clay surface and an impression was obtained - a miniature relief with a large number of characters and a clear, carefully built composition. For the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, the seal was not just a sign of property, but an object with magical powers. The seals were kept as talismans, given to temples, placed in burial places. In Sumerian engravings, the most frequent motifs were ritual feasts with figures sitting down to eat and drink. Other motifs were the legendary heroes Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu fighting monsters, as well as anthropomorphic figures of a bull-man. Over time, this style gave way to a continuous frieze depicting fighting animals, plants or flowers.

There was no monumental sculpture in Sumer. Small cult figurines are more common. They depict people in a pose of prayer. All sculptures have emphasized large eyes, as they were supposed to resemble an all-seeing eye. Big ears emphasized and symbolized wisdom, it is no coincidence that “wisdom” and “ear” in the Sumerian language are denoted by one word.

The art of Sumer has found development in numerous bas-reliefs, the main theme is the theme of hunting and battles. The faces in them were depicted in front, and the eyes - in profile, the shoulders in a three-quarter turn, and the legs - in profile. The proportions of human figures were not respected. But in the compositions of the bas-reliefs, the artists sought to convey movement.

Musical art certainly found its development in Sumer. For more than three millennia, the Sumerians composed their spell-songs, legends, laments, wedding songs, etc. The first stringed musical instruments - the lyre and the harp - also appeared among the Sumerians. They also had double oboes, big drums.

8 . EndSumer

After one and a half thousand years, the Sumerian culture was replaced by Akkadian. At the beginning of the II millennium BC. e. hordes of Semitic tribes invaded Mesopotamia. The conquerors adopted a higher local culture, but did not abandon their own. Moreover, they turned the Akkadian language into the official state language, and left the role of the language of religious worship and science to the Sumerian. The ethnic type also gradually disappears: the Sumerians dissolve into more numerous Semitic tribes. Their cultural conquests were continued by their successors: the Akkadians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians and the Chaldeans. After the emergence of the Akkadian Semitic kingdom, religious ideas also changed: there was a mixture of Semitic and Sumerian deities. Literary texts and school exercises, preserved on clay tablets, testify to the increasing level of literacy of the inhabitants of Akkad. During the reign of the dynasty from Akkad (about 2300 BC), the rigor and sketchiness of the Sumerian style give way to greater freedom of composition, voluminous figures and portraiture of features, primarily in sculpture and reliefs. In a single cultural complex called the Sumero-Akkadian culture, the Sumerians played the leading role. It is they, according to modern Orientalists, who are the founders of the famous Babylonian culture.

Two and a half thousand years have passed since the decline of the culture of Ancient Mesopotamia, and until recently it was known only from the stories of ancient Greek writers and from biblical traditions. But in the last century, archaeological excavations unearthed monuments of the material and written culture of Sumer, Assyria and Babylon, and this era appeared before us in all its barbaric splendor and gloomy grandeur.

In the spiritual culture of the Sumerians, there is still a lot of unsolved.

Csqueakusedliterature

1. Kravchenko A. I. Culturology: Uch. allowance for universities. -- M.: Academic project, 2001.

2.Emelyanov VV Ancient Sumer: Essays on culture. SPb., 2001

3. History of the Ancient World Ukolova V.I., Marinovich L.P. (Online edition)

4. Culturology edited by Professor A. N. Markova, Moscow, 2000, Unity

5. Culturology History of world culture, edited by N. O. Voskresenskaya, Moscow, 2003, Unity

6. History of world culture, E.P. Borzova, St. Petersburg, 2001

7. Culturology history of world culture edited by Professor A.N. Markova, Moscow, 1998, Unity

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The Sumerian civilization is the oldest on our planet. In the second half of the 4th millennium, it appeared, as if from nowhere. According to customs, the language of this people was alien to the Semitic tribes who settled Northern Mesopotamia a little later. The racial identity of the ancient Sumer has not been determined so far. The history of the Sumerians is mysterious and amazing. Sumerian culture gave mankind writing, the ability to work metals, the wheel and the potter's wheel. In an incomprehensible way, these people possessed knowledge that relatively recently only became known to science. They left behind so many mysteries and secrets that they rightfully occupy almost the first place among all the amazing events in our lives.

The origins of Mesopotamian culture date back to the 4th millennium BC. when cities began to emerge. The initial stages of Mesopotamian culture were marked by the invention of a kind of writing, which later turned into cuneiform. When the cuneiform was completely forgotten, the Mesopotamian culture perished along with it. However, its most important values ​​were adopted by the Persians, Arameans, Greeks and other peoples, and as a result of a complex and not yet fully elucidated chain of transmission, they entered the treasury of modern world culture.

Writing. At first, Sumerian writing was pictographic, that is, individual objects were depicted in the form of drawings. The oldest texts inscribed in such a script date back to about 3200 BC. e. However, only the simplest facts of economic life could be marked with pictography. However, such a letter could not fix their own names or convey abstract concepts (for example, thunder, flood) or human emotions (joy, grief, etc.). Therefore, strictly speaking, pictography was not yet a real letter, since it did not convey coherent speech, but only recorded fragmentary information or helped to remember this information.

Gradually, in the process of a long and extremely complex development, pictography turned into a verbal-syllabic script. One of the ways in which pictography moved into writing was due to the association of drawings with words.

the letter began to lose its pictorial character. Instead of a drawing to designate this or that object, they began to depict some of its characteristic detail (for example, instead of a bird, its wing), and then only schematically. Since they wrote with a reed stick on soft clay, it was inconvenient to draw on it. In addition, when writing from left to right, the drawings had to be rotated 90 degrees, as a result of which they lost all resemblance to the objects depicted and gradually took on the form of horizontal, vertical and angular wedges. So, as a result of centuries of development, pictorial writing turned into cuneiform. However, neither the Sumerians nor other peoples who borrowed their writing developed it into an alphabet, that is, a sound writing, where each sign conveys only one consonant or vowel sound. The Sumerian script contains logograms (or ideograms) that are read as whole words, signs for vowels, as well as consonants together with vowels (but not just consonants separately). In the XXIV century. BC e. the first lengthy texts known to us written in the Sumerian language appear.

The Akkadian language is attested in southern Mesopotamia from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. e, when the speakers of this language borrowed cuneiform from the Sumerians and began to use it widely in their daily lives. From the same time, intensive processes of interpenetration of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages ​​began, as a result of which they learned many words from each other. But the predominant source of such borrowings was the Sumerian language. In the last quarter of the III millennium BC. e. the oldest bilingual (Sumero-Akkadian) dictionaries were compiled.

At the end of the XXV century. BC e. Sumerian cuneiform began to be used in Ebla, the oldest state in Syria, where a library and archive were found, consisting of many thousands of tablets,

Sumerian writing was borrowed by many other peoples (Elamites, Hurrians, Hittites, and later Urartians), who adapted it to their languages, and gradually by the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. the whole of Asia Minor began to use the Sumero-Akkadian script.

Natural conditions were of particular importance for the Mesopotamian civilization. Unlike other centers of ancient culture, Mesopotamia had no stone, let alone papyrus, on which to write. But there was plenty of clay, which gave unlimited possibilities for writing, without requiring, in essence, any costs. At the same time, clay was a durable material. Clay tablets were not destroyed by fire, but, on the contrary, they acquired even greater strength. Therefore, the main material for writing in Mesopotamia was clay. In the first millennium BC. e. Babylonians and Assyrians also began to use leather and imported papyrus for writing. At the same time, in Mesopotamia, they began to use long narrow wooden boards covered with a thin layer of wax, on which cuneiform signs were applied.

Libraries. One of the greatest achievements of Babylonian and Assyrian culture was the creation of libraries. In Ur, Nippur and other cities, starting from the II millennium BC. BC, for many centuries scribes collected literary and scientific texts, and thus there were extensive private libraries.

Among all the libraries in the Ancient East, the most famous was the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-c. 635 BC), carefully and with great skill collected in his palace in Nineveh. For her, throughout Mesopotamia, scribes made copies of books from official and private collections, or collected the books themselves.

Archives. Ancient Mesopotamia was a land of archives. The earliest archives date back to the first quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. e. During this period, the premises in which the archives were stored, in most cases, did not differ from ordinary rooms. Later, the tablets began to be stored in boxes and baskets covered with bitumen to protect them from moisture. Labels were attached to the baskets indicating the contents of the documents and the period to which they belong.

Schools. Most of the scribes were educated at school, although scribe knowledge was often passed on in the family, from father to son. The Sumerian school, like the later Babylonian school, mainly trained scribes for state and temple administration. The school became a center of education and culture. The curriculum was so secular that religious education was not part of the curriculum at all. The main subject of study was the Sumerian language and literature. Pupils of the senior classes, depending on the narrower specialization assumed in the future, received grammatical, mathematical and astronomical knowledge. Those who were going to devote their lives to science studied law, astronomy, medicine and mathematics for a long time.

Literature. A significant number of poems, lyric works, myths, hymns, legends, epic tales and collections of proverbs have survived that once made up the rich Sumerian literature. The most famous monument of Sumerian literature is the cycle of epic tales about the legendary hero Gilgamesh. In its most complete form, this cycle was preserved in a later Akkadian revision found in the library of Ashurbanap-la.

Religion. Religion played a dominant role in the ideological life of ancient Mesopotamia. Even at the turn of the IV-III millennium BC. e. in Sumer a thoroughly developed theological system arose, which was later largely borrowed and developed further by the Babylonians. Each Sumerian city revered its patron god. In addition, there were gods who were revered throughout Sumer, although each of them had their own special places of worship, usually where their cult originated. They were the sky god Anu, the earth god Enlil, the Akkadians also called him Belomili Ea. The deities personified the elemental forces of nature and were often identified with cosmic bodies. Each deity was assigned specific functions. Enlil, whose center was the ancient holy city of Nippur, was the god of fate, the creator of cities, and the inventor of the hoe and plow. The god of the sun Utu (in Akkadian mythology, he bears the name Shamash), the god of the moon Nannar (in Akkadian Sin), who was considered the son of Enlil, "the fire of love and fertility Inanna (in the Vazilonian and Assyrian pantheon - Lshtar) and the god of eternal wildlife Du-muzi (Babylonian Tammuz), personifying dying and resurrecting vegetation.The god of war, disease and death Nergal was identified with the planet Mars, the supreme Babylonian god Marduk - with the planet Jupiter, Nabu (the son of Marduk), who was considered the god of wisdom, letters and accounts - with the planet Mercury.The supreme god of Assyria was the tribal god of this country Ashur.

In the beginning, Marduk was one of the most insignificant gods. But his role began to grow along with the political rise of Babylon, of which he was considered the patron.

In addition to deities, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia also revered numerous demons of goodness and sought to propitiate the demons of evil, who were considered the cause of various diseases and death. They also tried to save themselves against evil spirits with the help of spells and special amulets.

The Sumerians and Akkadians believed in an afterlife. According to their ideas, it was a realm of shadows, where the dead forever suffered from hunger and thirst and were forced to eat clay and dust. Therefore, the children of the dead were obliged to make sacrifices to them.

Scientific knowledge. The peoples of Mesopotamia achieved certain successes in the scientific knowledge of the world. Particularly great were the achievements of Babylonian mathematics, which originally arose from the practical needs of measuring fields, constructing canals and various buildings. Since ancient times, the Babylonians erected multi-story (usually seven-story) ziggurats. From the upper floors of the ziggurats, scientists from year to year conducted observations of the movements of celestial bodies. In this way, the Babylonians collected and recorded empirical observations of the Sun, the Moon, the positions of the various planets and constellations. In particular, astronomers noted the position of the Moon in relation to the planets and gradually established the periodicity of the movement of celestial bodies visible to the naked eye. In the process of such centuries-old observations, Babylonian mathematical astronomy arose.

A large number of Babylonian medical texts have survived. It can be seen from them that the doctors of Ancient Mesopotamia were able to treat dislocations and fractures of the limbs well. However, the Babylonians had very weak ideas about the structure of the human body and they failed to achieve noticeable success in the treatment of internal diseases.

Even in the III millennium BC. e. the inhabitants of Mesopotamia knew the way to India, and in the 1st millennium BC. e. also in Ethiopia and Spain. The maps that have survived to this day reflect the attempts of the Babylonians to systematize and generalize their rather extensive geographical knowledge. In the middle of the II millennium BC. e. guidebooks were compiled for Mesopotamia and adjacent countries, intended for merchants engaged in domestic and international trade. Maps covering the territory from Urartu to Egypt were found in the Ashurbanap-la library. Some maps show Babylonia and neighboring countries. These cards also contain text with the necessary comments.

Art. In the formation and subsequent development of the art of ancient Mesopotamia, the artistic traditions of the Sumerians played a decisive role. In the IV millennium BC. e., i.e., even before the emergence of the first state formations, the leading place in Sumerian art was occupied by painted ceramics with their characteristic geometric ornament. From the beginning of the III millennium BC. e. stone carving played an important role, which soon led to the rapid development of glyptics, which continued until the disappearance of cuneiform culture at the turn of the 1st century BC. n. e. Cylindrical seals depicted mythological, religious, domestic and hunting scenes.

In the XXIV-XXII centuries. BC When Mesopotamia became a single power, sculptors began to create idealized portraits of Sargon, the founder of the Akkadian dynasty.

The population of ancient Mesopotamia achieved impressive success in the construction of palace and temple buildings. They, like the houses of private individuals, were built of mud brick, but unlike the latter, they were erected on high platforms. A characteristic building of this kind was the famous palace of the kings of Mari, built at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e.

The development of technology, crafts and commodity-money relations led in the 1st millennium BC. e. to the emergence of large cities in Mesopotamia, which were the administrative, craft and cultural centers of the country, and to the improvement of living conditions. The largest city in Mesopotamia by area was Nineveh, built on the banks of the Tigris mainly under Sennacherib (705-681 BC) as the capital of Assyria.

Glass production began early in Mesopotamia: the first recipes for its manufacture date back to the 18th century. BC e.

However, the Iron Age in this country came relatively late - in the 11th century. BC e., the widespread use of iron for the production of tools and weapons began only a few centuries later.

Concluding the characterization of the culture of Ancient Mesopotamia, it should be noted that the achievements of the inhabitants of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in architecture, art, writing and literature, in the field of scientific knowledge, in many respects played the role of a standard for the entire Near East in antiquity.

Rulers, nobility and temples demanded accounting of property. To indicate who, how much and what belonged, special signs-drawings were invented. Pictography is the oldest writing using drawings.

Cuneiform was used in Mesopotamia for almost 3,000 years. However, she was later forgotten. For dozens of centuries, cuneiform kept its secret, until in 1835 G. Rawlinson. English officer and lover of antiquities. did not decipher it. On a sheer cliff in Iran, the same inscription in three ancient languages, including Old Persian. Rawlinson first read the inscription in this language he knew, and then managed to understand another inscription, identifying and deciphering more than 200 cuneiform characters.

The invention of writing was one of the greatest achievements of mankind. Writing made it possible to preserve knowledge, made it available to a large number of people. It became possible to keep the memory of the past in records (on clay tablets, on papyrus), and not only in oral retelling, passed down from generation to generation "by word of mouth". To this day, writing remains the main repository information for humanity.

2. The birth of literature.

In Sumer, the first poems were written, depicting ancient legends and stories about heroes. Writing allowed them to be conveyed to our time. Thus, literature was born.

The Sumerian poem about Gilgamesh tells of a hero who dared to challenge the gods. Gilgamesh was the king of the city of Uruk. He boasted before the gods of his power, and the gods were angry with the proud man. They created Enkidu, a half-man, half-beast with great strength, and sent him to fight Gilgamesh. However, the gods miscalculated. The forces of Gilgamesh and Enkidu were equal. Recent enemies have turned into friends. They went on a journey and experienced many adventures. Together they defeated the terrible giant who guarded the cedar forest, and performed many other feats. But the god of the sun became angry with Enkidu and doomed him to death. Gilgamesh mourned the death of his friend inconsolably. Gilgamesh realized that he could not conquer death.

Gilgamesh set out to seek immortality. At the bottom of the sea, he found the herb of eternal life. But as soon as the hero fell asleep on the shore, the evil snake ate the magic grass. Gilgamesh was never able to fulfill his dream. But the poem created by people about him made his image immortal.

In the literature of the Sumerians we find an exposition of the myth of the flood. People stopped obeying the gods and by their behavior aroused their wrath. And the gods decided to destroy the human race. But among the people there was a man named Utnapishtim, who obeyed the gods in everything and led a righteous life. The water god Ea took pity on him and warned him of an impending flood. Utnapishtim built a ship, loaded his family, domestic animals and property on it. For six days and nights his ship rushed over the raging waves. On the seventh day, the storm subsided.

Then Utnapnshtim released a raven. And the raven did not return to him. Utnapishtim understood that the raven had seen the earth. That was the top of the mountain, to which the ship of Utnapishtim landed. Here he made a sacrifice to the gods. The gods have forgiven people. Utnapnshtim was granted immortality by the gods. The waters of the flood receded. Since then, the human race again began to multiply, mastering new lands.

The myth of the flood existed among many peoples of antiquity. He entered the Bible. Even the ancient inhabitants of Central America, cut off from the civilizations of the Ancient East, also created a legend about the Flood.

3. Knowledge of the Sumerians.

The Sumerians learned to observe the Sun, Moon, and stars. They calculated their path through the sky, identified many constellations and gave them names. It seemed to the Sumerians that the stars, their movement and location determine the fate of people and states. They discovered the zodiac belt - 12 constellations that form a large circle along which the Sun makes its way during the year. The learned priests compiled calendars, calculated the timing of lunar eclipses. Sumer was the beginning of one of the oldest sciences - astronomy.

In mathematics, the Sumerians knew how to count in tens. But the numbers 12 (a dozen) and 60 (five dozen) were especially revered. We still use the legacy of the Sumerians when we divide an hour into 60 minutes, a minute into 60 seconds, a year into 12 months, and a circle into 360 degrees.

The first schools were created in the cities of Ancient Sumer. Only boys studied in them, girls were given home education. The boys went to school at sunrise. Schools were organized at temples. The teachers were priests.

Classes continued throughout the day. Learning to write in cuneiform, to count, to tell stories about gods and heroes was not easy. For bad knowledge and violation of discipline severely punished. Anyone who successfully completed school could get a job as a scribe, official, or become a priest. This made it possible to live without knowing poverty.

Despite the severity of discipline, the school in Sumer was likened to a family. Teachers were called "father" and students were called "sons of the school". And in those distant times, children were children. They loved to play and fool around. Archaeologists have found games and toys that children used to play with. The younger ones played the same way as today's kids. They carried toys on wheels. Interestingly, the greatest invention - the wheel - was immediately applied in toys.

IN AND. Ukolova, L.P. Marinovich, History, Grade 5
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It developed in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and existed from the 4th millennium BC. until the middle of the VI century. BC. Unlike the Egyptian culture of Mesopotamia, it was not homogeneous; it was formed in the process of repeated interpenetration of several ethnic groups and peoples, and therefore was multilayer.

The main inhabitants of Mesopotamia were Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Chaldeans in the south: Assyrians, Hurrians and Arameans in the north. The cultures of Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria reached the greatest development and importance.

The origin of the Sumerian ethnos is still a mystery. It is only known that in the IV millennium BC. the southern part of Mesopotamia is inhabited by the Sumerians and lay the foundations for the entire subsequent civilization of this region. Like the Egyptian, this civilization was river. By the beginning of the III millennium BC. in the south of Mesopotamia, several city-states appear, the main of which are Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Jlapca, etc. They alternately play a leading role in uniting the country.

The history of Sumer knew several ups and downs. XXIV-XXIII centuries deserve special mention. BC when the elevation occurs Semitic city of Akkad north of Sumer. Under the reign of Sargon the Ancient, Akkad succeeded in subordinating all Sumer to his power. Akkadian replaces Sumerian and becomes the main language throughout Mesopotamia. Semitic art also has a great influence on the entire region. In general, the significance of the Akkadian period in the history of Sumer turned out to be so significant that some authors call the entire culture of this period Sumero-Akkadian.

Culture of Sumer

The basis of the economy of Sumer was agriculture with a developed irrigation system. Hence it is clear why one of the main monuments of Sumerian literature was the "Agricultural Almanac", containing instructions on farming - how to maintain soil fertility and avoid salinization. It was also important cattle breeding. metallurgy. Already at the beginning of the III millennium BC. the Sumerians began to manufacture bronze tools, and at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. entered the Iron Age. From the middle of the III millennium BC. potter's wheel is used in the production of dishes. Other crafts are successfully developing - weaving, stone-cutting, blacksmithing. Extensive trade and exchange takes place both between the Sumerian cities and with other countries - Egypt, Iran. India, the states of Asia Minor.

It should be emphasized the importance Sumerian writing. The cuneiform script invented by the Sumerians turned out to be the most successful and effective. Improved in the II millennium BC. Phoenicians, it formed the basis of almost all modern alphabets.

System religious and mythological ideas and cults Sumer partly echoes the Egyptian. In particular, it also contains the myth of a dying and resurrecting god, which is the god Dumuzi. As in Egypt, the ruler of the city-state was declared a descendant of a god and was perceived as an earthly god. At the same time, there were notable differences between the Sumerian and Egyptian systems. So, among the Sumerians, the funeral cult, belief in the afterlife did not acquire great importance. Equally, the priests among the Sumerians did not become a special layer that played a huge role in public life. In general, the Sumerian system of religious beliefs seems to be less complex.

As a rule, each city-state had its own patron god. However, there were gods who were revered throughout Mesopotamia. Behind them stood those forces of nature, the significance of which for agriculture was especially great - sky, earth and water. These were the sky god An, the earth god Enlil and the water god Enki. Some gods were associated with individual stars or constellations. It is noteworthy that in Sumerian writing, the pictogram of a star meant the concept of "god". Of great importance in the Sumerian religion was the mother goddess, the patroness of agriculture, fertility and childbearing. There were several such goddesses, one of them was the goddess Inanna. patroness of the city of Uruk. Some myths of the Sumerians - about the creation of the world, the Flood - had a strong influence on the mythology of other peoples, including Christian ones.

In Sumer, the leading art was architecture. Unlike the Egyptians, the Sumerians did not know stone construction and all structures were created from raw brick. Due to the swampy terrain, buildings were erected on artificial platforms - embankments. From the middle of the III millennium BC. The Sumerians were the first to widely use arches and vaults in construction.

The first architectural monuments were two temples, White and Red, discovered in Uruk (end of the 4th millennium BC) and dedicated to the main deities of the city - the god Anu and the goddess Inanna. Both temples are rectangular in plan, with ledges and niches, decorated with relief images in the "Egyptian style". Another significant monument is the small temple of the goddess of fertility Ninhursag in Ur (XXVI century BC). It was built using the same architectural forms, but decorated not only with relief but also with round sculpture. In the niches of the walls there were copper figurines of walking gobies, and on the friezes there were high reliefs of lying gobies. At the entrance to the temple there are two statues of lions made of wood. All this made the temple festive and elegant.

In Sumer, a peculiar type of cult building developed - a ziggurag, which was a stepped, rectangular in plan tower. On the upper platform of the ziggurat there was usually a small temple - "the dwelling of the god." The ziggurat for thousands of years played approximately the same role as the Egyptian pyramid, but unlike the latter, it was not an afterlife temple. The most famous was the ziggurat (“temple-mountain”) in Ur (XXII-XXI centuries BC), which was part of a complex of two large temples and a palace and had three platforms: black, red and white. Only the lower, black platform has survived, but even in this form, the ziggurat makes a grandiose impression.

Sculpture in Sumer was less developed than architecture. As a rule, it had a cult, "initiatory" character: the believer placed a figurine made to his order, most often small in size, in the temple, which, as it were, was praying for his fate. The person was depicted conditionally, schematically and abstractly. without respect for proportions and without a portrait resemblance to the model, often in the pose of a prayer. An example is a female figurine (26 cm) from Lagash, which has mostly common ethnic features.

In the Akkadian period, sculpture changes significantly: it becomes more realistic, acquires individual features. The most famous masterpiece of this period is the copper head of Sargon the Ancient (XXIII century BC), which perfectly conveys the unique traits of the king's character: courage, will, severity. This rare expressive work is almost no different from modern ones.

Sumerian reached a high level literature. In addition to the above-mentioned "Agricultural Almanac", the most significant literary monument was the Epic of Gilgamesh. This epic poem tells about a man who saw everything, experienced everything, knew everything and who was close to unraveling the mystery of immortality.

By the end of the III millennium BC. Sumer gradually falls into decline, and eventually conquered by Babylonia.

Babylonia

Its history is divided into two periods: the Ancient, covering the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, and the New, falling in the middle of the 1st millennium BC.

Ancient Babylonia reaches its highest rise under the king Hammurabi(1792-1750 BC). Two significant monuments remain from his time. The first of them - Laws of Hammurabi became the most outstanding monument of ancient Eastern legal thought. 282 articles of the Code of Law cover almost all aspects of the life of Babylonian society and constitute civil, criminal and administrative law. The second monument is a basalt pillar (2 m), which depicts King Hammurabi himself, sitting in front of Shamash, the god of the sun and justice, as well as a part of the text of the famous codex.

New Babylonia reached its highest peak under the king Nebuchadnezzar(605-562 BC). Under him were built famous "Hanging Gardens of Babylon", become one of the seven wonders of the world. They can be called a grandiose monument of love, since they were presented by the king to his beloved wife in order to alleviate her longing for the mountains and gardens of her homeland.

No less famous monument is also Tower of Babel. It was the highest ziggurat in Mesopotamia (90 m), consisting of several towers stacked on top of each other, on the top of which was the saint and she of Marduk, the main god of the Babylonians. Seeing the tower, Herodotus was shocked by its greatness. She is mentioned in the Bible. When the Persians conquered Babylonia (VI century BC), they destroyed Babylon and all the monuments that were in it.

The achievements of Babylonia deserve special mention. gastronomy and mathematics. The Babylonian stargazers calculated with amazing accuracy the time of the Moon's revolution around the Earth, compiled a solar calendar and a map of the starry sky. The names of the five planets and twelve constellations of the solar system are of Babylonian origin. Astrologers gave people astrology and horoscopes. Even more impressive were the successes of mathematicians. They laid the foundations of arithmetic and geometry, developed a “positional system”, where the numerical value of a sign depends on its “position”, knew how to square a power and extract a square root, created geometric formulas for measuring land.

Assyria

The third powerful power of Mesopotamia - Assyria - arose in the 3rd millennium BC, but reached its peak in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. Assyria was poor in resources but rose to prominence due to its geographic location. She found herself at the crossroads of caravan routes, and trade made her rich and great. The capitals of Assyria were successively Ashur, Calah and Nineveh. By the XIII century. BC. it became the most powerful empire in the entire Middle East.

In the artistic culture of Assyria - as in the whole Mesopotamia - the leading art was architecture. The most significant architectural monuments were the palace complex of King Sargon II in Dur-Sharrukin and the palace of Ashur-banapala in Nineveh.

The Assyrian reliefs, decorating the palace premises, the plots of which were scenes from royal life: religious ceremonies, hunting, military events.

One of the best examples of Assyrian reliefs is the "Great Lion Hunt" from the palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, where the scene depicting the wounded, dying and killed lions is filled with deep drama, sharp dynamics and vivid expression.

In the 7th century BC. the last ruler of Assyria, Ashur-banapap, created in Nineveh a magnificent library, containing more than 25 thousand clay cuneiform tablets. The library has become the largest in the entire Middle East. It contained documents that in one way or another concerned the entire Mesopotamia. Among them was kept the above-mentioned "Epic of Gilgamesh".

Mesopotamia, like Egypt, has become a real cradle of human culture and civilization. Sumerian cuneiform and Babylonian astronomy and mathematics are enough to speak of the exceptional significance of Mesopotamian culture.